Free Web NovelChapter 3: Blood and Dreams
Chapter 3: Blood and Dreams
It was six in the afternoon in the suburbs of Cliff City in the Northern District...
Outside a secluded bungalow, police tape had long since been set up. Several officers hid in the shade of the trees, occasionally lifting their heads to sneak a look inside the house. Seeing nothing, they sighed and lowered their voices, chatting about the rumors and gossip circulating through the police station lately. They were restless and uneasy.
Only the figure leaning by the doorway remained completely still from beginning to end. The motorcycle jacket draped over her shoulders swayed slightly in the wind. Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, making it impossible to see their expression.
Her build stood out even among men, but the sharp, oppressive aura surrounding her made people instinctively avert their gaze.
“Sorry, Mrs. Wen. I’m late.”
A young woman wearing a sun hat stepped out of a taxi with two cups of milk tea in hand. After flashing her credentials to the police, she crossed the tape and walked toward the person at the door.
“Traffic was terrible. They said there was almost a car accident. How thrilling. I took a look at the scene. That truck was huge, and it almost slammed right into someone...”
Tong Hua[1] animatedly described the scene to her superior. “So yeah, we should never drive exhausted. That driver got pinned to the ground and beaten by some middle-aged lady. If the patrol officers hadn’t shown up fast, she would’ve slapped his brains out. He looked exactly like that idiot from Team One last time when you pinned him down and beat him up...”
Unfortunately, the woman at the door had no interest in responding. She only glanced at Tong Hua’s excited expression, then motioned with her chin toward the inside of the house.
“Done talking? Go look at the scene.”
“Aw, Mrs. Wen, you’re still so serious. I just rushed over from the previous scene. I haven’t rested in over ten hours, and I even brought you milk tea.”
Tong Hua made a pitiful face for a brief second, then almost immediately lit up again with excitement written all over her. “But hey, I recently learned footprint analysis. Come on, let me take a look...”
She put on gloves, stepped inside, and lowered her head to glance at the entryway of the living room. She took on a serious expression and said, “Someone’s been here.”
“Hm?” Wen Wen couldn’t help but tense up.
“Looks like a woman.” Tong Hua squatted down and squinted at the footprints in the dust, then sniffed lightly. “How unusual. She’s about 1.9 meters tall, around twenty-five years old. Ha, gotcha. She even smoked here...”
“White Star?” Wen Wen’s lips curved into a gentle smile.
Tong Hua spun around in shock. “You can even tell the brand?”
What answered her was a slap to the back of her head that nearly knocked her out.
“That was me, damn it!” Wen Wen exploded, pointing into the living room. “Footprint analysis my ass. You might as well read off my driver’s license number. If you’re gonna look at the scene, actually pay attention.”
Tong Hua felt like her head had nearly been knocked off. She did not dare show off the skills she had just learned when her team leader was in a foul mood, though she could not help feeling a little worried.
She’s so fierce... I bet it’s hard for her to find a boyfriend.
Still, as she muttered to herself and looked up at the crime scene, she could not help but sigh. “I really didn’t want to see this.”
Couldn’t it be someone else?
A damp breeze blew in through the window. Dust had already settled thickly on the table. The lavish dinner had gone untouched, and mosquitoes and flies buzzed all over it.
And right beside the dining table, amid the wreckage, five shattered bodies were strewn all over the place. They were torn apart beyond recognition, and there was blood splashed everywhere, as if a ferocious beast had burst in and torn them to pieces.
There was an elder, a child, a man, a woman...
All of them had died in less than a minute.
Tong Hua reached out and pressed her hand against the head on the table. She closed her eyes, and an endless surge of agony flooded in with the tide of memories. They crashed straight into her brain, making her convulse uncontrollably.
In the visions before her eyes, a blood-soaked figure burst in through the window and lunged at the dining table before feasting ravenously.
It was a forty-year-old man with a disabled left hand and a black tattoo on his face. His eyes were blood red.
Then came the pain of being torn apart, the terror of having one’s organs devoured, and the despair of losing everything.
“This is the fourth one.” Tong Hua opened her eyes, suppressing the urge to vomit. “It’s not the previous perpetrator...”
It was already the fourth homicide committed by a Bloodlust Syndrome patient this week in Cliff City.
Bloodlust Syndrome was a bizarre plague that spread from the Central Lands. According to legend, it was a curse brought down because the White King, one of the Four Great Priest-Kings[2] of Central Lands, had betrayed the Chosen Dao.
It spread through bodily fluids, and its main symptom was, in the most literal sense, thirst for blood.
In the early stage of infection, patients gradually experienced uncontrollable hunger and a craving for blood-based products. Once the illness reached the second stage, they would slowly lose rationality. During this period, their appetite shifted toward living creatures, while their physical abilities were enhanced and their canine teeth began to protrude. When they lost interest in poultry and livestock and turned their gaze toward their own kind, that marked the official entry into the third stage.
“There’s at least four already,” Wen Wen murmured softly.
But there was an old saying that fit all too well: If you see one cockroach in your home, it means there’s a whole nest hiding where you can’t see.
“We need to move faster,” Tong Hua said. “If this keeps going, by next week, some patients might reach the fifth stage.” freewebnovёl.ƈom
The fourth stage involved organ mutation and a gradual loss of humanity. By the fifth stage, once the host body completed its rapid development, it would gain the ability to infect others. At that point, it could spread the Bloodlust Syndrome to new patients.
“The backyard’s about to go up in flames,” Tong Hua said, scratching her head. “Where’s the director? Is he still not back?”
“The unrest in the Spring City underground cavern is getting worse and worse. If this keeps up, the disaster could spill over. All the top brass across Haizhou are watching that situation right now. For the time being, no one’s got the capacity to deal with this side.”
To put it bluntly, compared to an underground cavern overflow and the terrifying consequence of one third of Haizhou being flooded, a few rabid dogs with Bloodlust Syndrome barely even counted as a real problem. They had to be pushed down the priority list.
“That bunch from Team One strut around like kings normally, but when it matters, they’re completely useless.” Tong Hua sighed. “Any support from the other teams?”
“Out of the seven squads in Team Two, five are just waiting for me to mess things up so they can swoop in and take a slice of Team North Mount’s glory... Well, that’s on me for being a clueless rookie who doesn’t know when to back off. At this point, I’ll be happy if they don’t kick us while we’re down.”
Wen Wen lowered her head and lit a White Star cigarette, then asked, “Want me to go find Lu Shenzhou and get you transferred to another team, so you don’t sink with me on this broken ship?”
“Bullshit! Anyone betraying the big bro—no, scratch that, the big sis deserves to be stabbed to death!” Tong Hua stomped her feet in panic, flailing her arms. “I’m on your side, you have to trust me!”
What answered her was, once again, a slap to the back of her head. “You’re an agent of the Security Bureau, not some gang thug. What do you mean, stab them?”
That said, a faint smile still appeared on Wen Wen’s beautiful yet cold face, barely perceptible through the drifting smoke. “Find any leads?”
Tong Hua grinned. “A total newbie. Never even tried to hide it. This is practically running around naked in the middle of the day.”
“Alright, you make the call, get Zhang and An on board.” Wen Wen didn’t waste another second and waved her hand. “You guys start tracking this lead. If anything goes wrong, follow Zhang’s orders.”
“What about you?” Tong Hua asked blankly.
“I’ll go talk to my old friends.” Wen Wen finally cracked a smile. She was easy and relaxed, though a hint of her sharp, dangerous edge crept into her eyes. “Who knows, maybe we’ll find something new.”
The seven provinces of the Northern Federation sported nineteen major cities, and Cliff City was one of them.
The most chaotic and lawless area of the city was the North Mount District, with a resident population of 4.1 million and more than a million undocumented illegal immigrants.
The underground scene was a tangled mess, with shady groups constantly vying for power and all kinds of lowlifes lurking around.
From west to east, there was the United Victory, Eastland Society, White Pact Gang, and Brotherhood League.
Among so much trash, surely there were a few who would answer for this, right?
The throttle twisted, and the bike’s engine roared, belching thick smoke as it tore through the sea breeze.
To hell with rules and royalty. I’ll kill anyone in my way.
***
Ji Jue thought that he had left this world very peacefully.
For a brief moment, he truly thought he was dead. Only, the world after death did not seem much different from life before, except that it was far colder, and he felt strangely light. In his drowsy, hazy state, he had no idea where he was.
His soul seemed to rise, leaving the mortal world behind. The noise started fading away as he ascended toward the sky, where no trace of dust remained. He felt as if he were soaring to heaven with his eyes fixed upon the firmament, then looking back down upon the earth.
Yet after escaping the shell of his flesh, what he saw was not some heaven at all. Rather, it was without question... hell!
The land was no longer stable. Fire and mist surged across it, and fissures like vast rifts spread all over. The sky, too, was no longer whole—it fractured, collapsed, and fell apart into a rain of meteors. Scattered stars burned within the darkness, erupting with searing light.
Thus the firmament burned to ashes, and the darkness was scattered and swept away. Boundless clouds were brushed away like smog, and all that remained was endless brilliance. Behind that sea of light, silhouettes seemed to be slowly taking shape.
Those indistinct silhouettes overlapped with one another, yet remained clearly separate, like pillars supporting the dome of heaven above the world. They seemed to be everywhere at once, encompassing all things.
One was like a sun wheel[3] dripping blood. One was as vast as mountains and oceans. One was a throne formed from intertwined bones and blood. One shifted endlessly, like flame and lightning. One rose ever upward, beyond the reach of mortal things. One was a towering and solemn square structure, as imposing as a city gate. One radiated freely, as though nothing could bind it.
Ji Jue stared in suffocating awe.
The beings—no, the people... no, the gods were all looking at him.
In that instant, Ji Jue felt his head splitting apart. His soul and consciousness seemed on the verge of being burned to nothing under that gaze, unable to endure any longer. The last thing he perceived was a flood of white light rushing toward him.
It swallowed everything.
“Holy shit, I—” Ji Jue jolted upright, panic flashing through him even in the throes of his dying illness.
From the bedroom came heavy, ragged breaths. In the quiet, the morning rain tapped against the window, and all that filled the room was the slow, echoing tick of the old clocks. A faint chill spread through the room, carrying a trace of mildew that refused to dissipate.
Only after chugging down the cold water left over from two days ago in one go did Ji Jue finally wake fully from that inexplicable long dream and return to the human world. He finally remembered where he was. This was his home.
1. Refer to the Translator’s Thoughts for more info. ☜
2. “Priest-King” usually refers to figures in early human civilizations who held both the highest political authority and the highest religious office. These individuals embodied the fusion of political and religious power, using ritual ceremonies to legitimize and assert their rule. A typical example is the rulers of Uruk in Mesopotamia and the pharaohs of Egypt. ☜
3. 日轮 (Sun Wheel) is a literary term in Chinese used to describe the sun. ☜
